These are poems that aim at reflecting something uniquely American in experience. Be it a place. Or a person or an experience. It had to happen somewhere to become something.
Been lost in books
This new found day
Drowning in their words
Find time by what they say
The Great American Dead!*
Their voices stifled
By dust, in bookcases
Their pages rifled
By Pilgrims seeking places
To give glory
To the Great
American
Story.
Often they’ve looked in
On the old, cold dark walls and halls of Europeans
But that boat has sailed
With the Revolution
And Moderns;
We seek
Curt details.
*Dickinson, Longfellow, Whitman, Frost, Williams
I picked this
Flower for you
Because you
Deserve it!
I picked this
Flower for you
For when
You are blue.
I picked these
Flowers for you,
The ones in
Your pictures you keep.
I picked these
Flowers for you
Because you
Are my Mom.
I picked this
Flower for you
And you pressed it
And I kept it
Close to my heart.
Shrill, shrieking screams
Cold. Violent. Chilling
to hear in the distance
A sharp thud and another
and a scream and more
yelling I can’t understand…
As gentle flakes drift
and sway in the silent wind
A murder
of crows caw and bolt
into flight as the next
wail splits the silence.
Round white globes volley
back and forth
another thud
another scream
as I approach.
Fresh snow, two hands
A shocking cold spray of
force and wet hits your
cheek and sticks
to your glasses.
“Hey, no fair! I said not in the face.”
A dark cloud rolls
O’er the town
Backlit by street lamps
Burning the midnight oil
As herds of children
In their ‘jams
Drag “experiential” parents
To the steam engine’s boil
For ‘cross this frosty
Little town
Large groups of people
Can be found
Searching for the next Express
Into a time they step
Back in line to board
The old coal and steel
From rail to tail first
Cold winter’s night
They experience the past
As if it were real
And Christmas wishes turn kisses
Into hot chocolate dreams. Awake
They return
Glowing with the magic of the season!
Manganese for iron horse
Pulled from mountains with no remorse
To birth a nation with lines of steel
Nature stripped but never killed
Meteorite from another world
Maybe the lizard’s celestial fuel
Empty streets
only 3 kinds
Driving
Drunks, Cops, Work
4:55am
No cops
Tied up
w/ drunks?
No bodies
in a hurry
to get
to work.
Flight
6:05am
Don’t want
to be late
for the
wait.
Whipping torrent
Whistles away
Last hold outs.
Stripping bare trees
In preparation
For first snow;
Long and calm
After wild wisps.
Clouds; tentacles
Reaching out
To whip the
Sky to attention
And receive
The constant
Constellation;
Stars dancing
In the street lights.
Settling into
Contrasting parallels;
Vascular branches,
Reaching out.
Breathless.
Persistent.
Silent.
Mesmerizing…
Relief.
Months of
Mounted
pressures
Released
for the
first time.
Steam bursting
from a boil
of potatoes
changing
soiled
potential
into energy.
Gathered
friends to
remember
and enjoy
the bounty
that our labors
have provided.
“Let us give thanks.”
Boys
Are dumb
And I was one
Who stood upon
A red rock ledge
At the top of the bell
Where it all went to hell
While I almost fell to my death
As the couple sunbathed on the spire
Below us. — Bandana over foot, iron spike
And a couple friends spared my corpse
from too much youthful ambition.
Protected valley
Almost secret.
Easily missed.
A closed garden
Naturally walled
With mesas on
All sides. Few
Openings for
Free passage
Among the stones.
Seasonal bounty
Arises. Perfect
Conditions for life.
Fertile volcanic
Soil needs only
Moist covering
To yield sustenance.
Native flowers,
Cacti, cedar
Abound, adapted
To dry and
Sometimes
Absent thunderstorms.
One monsoon
and her ridges
will be riddled with
The colors of
A desert bloom.